Perth bumps Susie as daytime war heats up

On WIN TV today Susie will be seen at the Old Parliament House as part of a special ‘Canberra’ week. Across this week the Susie Elelman chat show will visit The Royal Australian Mint, The National Zoo and Aquarium, The National Science and Technology Centre and the Australian War Memorial.

But while it airs at 1pm in the Australian Capital Territory as part of the WIN Network, how is it faring on the WIN-owned Nine affiliates, particularly in the light of daytime changes elsewhere?

Susie is considered one of the jewel’s in WIN’s crown. Cheerfully hosted by Elelman, it celebrated its 200th episode in June, chalking up a much longer life than Nine’s failed chat show The Catch-Up, which ended around the same time Elelman’s started. WIN even used Susie as leverage during a ‘network war’ with PBL Media last year over programming supply. Replacing key Nine shows for Susie minimised sales opportunities in Nine’s advertorials on The Catch Up and Mornings with Kerri-Anne.

Produced in Wollongong, Susie features a mix of celebrity, healthy, cooking, beauty and fashion and, in this era of dwindling variety opportunities, it’s never short of guests with a song to sing or a book to plug.

Not too long ago WIN reinstated Kerri-Anne to 9am in Perth and Adelaide, with Susie moving to 12noon. Last month Nine’s east coast stations dropped its midday movies for US shows The View and The Ellen DeGeneres Show as a way of providing its advertisers a more consistent audience. Last week, another switch quietly followed in Perth.

Susie was moved to late nights on STW9, where it now airs around 12 midnight, but remains at 12 noon in Adelaide.

There have been suggestions that the show had been underperforming on STW9 Perth, unable to compete with Seven’s midday movie and Dr. Phil on TEN.

Looking at random figures, on September 10 between 12 -1pm when Susie was airing it averaged just 8,000 viewers in Perth. In the same hour Seven’s movie averaged 29,000 and Dr. Phil 38,000 viewers. By comparison, last Thursday The View averaged 15,000 viewers for STW9 against 31,000 for Seven’s movie and 25,000 for Dr. Phil. Based on those figures The View has nearly doubled the audience of Susie.

Over in Adelaide, Susie averaged just 5,000 for the same day last week against Seven’s 25,000 and TEN’s 29,000, fuelling speculation it could soon be headed for a shift there too.

Nationally last Thursday, Seven’s Movie had 241,000 viewers on average over its 2 hours. TEN’s Dr Phil had 177,000 while Nine’s The View 96,000 + Susie 5,000 totalled 101,000.

Despite low figures in metropolitan cities, Susie is viewed with much affection by WIN and, it has been suggested, by its billionaire owner Bruce Gordon. As one who resides in Bermuda, he may not mind that the show’s audience is so low on Nine’s affiliates.

Like most talk shows, Susie also features sponsor advertorials that help upkeep production costs. If it lacks a daytime audience in Perth, and potentially Adelaide, it remains to be seen whether WIN’s sales team can attract the same revenue.

WIN Television did not respond to enquiries from TV Tonight.